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October 25, 2012

Barack Obama is a Liar

By Selwyn Duke

Calling someone a liar is a serious accusation. This is why,
aside from the unwritten contract allowing for mutual prevarication,
politicians are so reluctant to do it. And not just anyone is a liar. Legend
has it that our first president said, “I cannot tell a lie,” but, being only
human, G.W. no doubt could and certainly did, at some point. A liar, however, is someone who lives and
breathes the lie; someone who specializes in the art of artifice; someone to
whom lying is his first recourse, not his last. Such a man is Barack Obama.

(more…)
October 25, 2012

Democrat Boss Caught on Video Planning Vote Fraud

By Selwyn Duke

In a shocking display of lawlessness and contempt for our
electoral system, a Democrat Party operative in Virginia was caught on video facilitating
a scheme to commit vote fraud. Art Moore of WND.com reports
on the story:

(more…)
October 24, 2012

Election 2012: Sound Bites vs. Reality

By Selwyn Duke

Any good advertising man knows that a catchy slogan is worth a
thousand words. A lot more customers are won by “Coke is It!” or “Just
Do It” than are lost by the tedious expositions on side effects rendered
at the end of drug commercials. Unfortunately, sound bites, true or
not, are also effective in politics. They can even trump reality.

Consider, for instance, the rallying cry “A woman makes only 72 cents
on a man’s dollar!” This is a compelling message even though it’s
wholly deceptive. As I explained here,
if you dig into the statistics behind that statistic, you learn that
this disparity is explained not by unjust discrimination but by career
and lifestyle choices the sexes make, such as entering different
occupations, working different numbers of hours, and taking on different
amounts of responsibility. But digging is difficult and people’s
attention spans are short; thus, even conservative politicians choose to
mouth platitudes about women’s rights rather than dare explain the
truth on the wage gap.

Another sound bite bandied about this election cycle is that Mitt
Romney pays only 14 percent in tax, a class-warfare message that’s
supposed to make us believe the rich don’t pony up their “fair share.”
What this bit of propaganda confuses, however, are income-tax rates with
the capital-gains tax rate.

Read the rest here.
October 23, 2012

Study: Women Have Trouble Handling Bad News

By Selwyn Duke

It seems as if no news really is good news — at least if you’re a
woman. So says a study out of the University of Montreal (UM), which
found that women experienced stress after reading negative news stories
while men did not. Writes William Raillant-Clark in a UM press release:

The researchers asked 60 people divided
into four groups to read actual news stories. In order to determine
their stress levels, the researchers took samples of the participants'
saliva and analyzed them for a hormone called cortisol. Higher levels of
this bodily chemical indicate higher levels of stress. A group of men
and a group of women read "neutral" news stories, about subjects such as
the opening of a new park or the premiere of a new film, while the
[other] two gender segregated groups read negative stories, about events
such as murders or accidents.

CBS News reports on the findings, writing:

The day after the experiments, the subjects were called in and asked about what they had read.

While reading the stories alone did not
increase stress levels, the researchers found that women who read
negative news had higher stress levels after memory and intellect
experiments compared to the women who read the neutral news.

"Moreover, the women were able to
remember more of the details of the negative stories," [lead author and
Ph.D. candidate Marie-France Marin] said. "It is interesting to note
that we did not observe this phenomenon amongst the male participants."

In a case of uncanny timing….

Read the rest here.
October 23, 2012

Michael Savage Back on Radio Tonight

By Selwyn Duke

After a legal win that allowed him to leave his former employer
last month, award-winning talk-show host Michael Savage will return to the
airwaves tonight. Savage will have not just a new syndicator, Cumulus Media
Networks, but also a new time slot, 9 p.m. to midnight Eastern Time. His
previous slot was 6 to 9 p.m. Eastern.

(more…)
October 23, 2012

Petulant, Perturbed Obama Just Can’t Help Himself

By Selwyn Duke

As with the vice-presidential debate and Joe Biden, Barack
Obama’s attitude in Monday night’s debate spoke more clearly than anything he
said. No, he didn’t laugh like Bozo the Clown, giggle like a schoolgirl, shake
his head, and roll his eyes like Jokin’ Joe did. But he looked petulant, perturbed,
and on edge (and was occasionally rude) throughout much of the night, despite three
days of debate preparation at Camp David. It seems Barack Obama just can’t help
himself.

(more…)
October 22, 2012

Will Vote Fraud Win the Election for Obama?

By Selwyn Duke

Propelled by impressive debate performances, Mitt Romney has surged
in the polls. Gallup had the GOP nominee leading by as many as seven
points recently, and likely women voters, who once favored Barack Obama
by double digits, now lean toward the president by only one percent in
the swing states. Even more significantly, Romney has finally taken the
lead in the Real Clear Politics electoral-college estimate, 206 to 201. And it’s plain to me what all this means for November 6.

Barack Obama will likely win re-election.

As someone who thinks the president is the kind of man who lights up a
room when he leaves it, I assuredly take no pleasure in making this
prediction. My problem, however, is that I lost my rose-colored glasses a
long time ago. And viewed without them, it’s clear that the electoral
map won’t likely come up roses for Romney.

It’s not that I doubt the RCP estimate of 206 safe electoral votes
for the former governor. It’s that it’s hard to see where the 64
additional votes needed to reach 270 can come from. How can this be with
131 up for grabs?

Read the rest here.
October 21, 2012

Duke Responds to Reader: What is the Nature of Law?

A reader recently posted the following response to my article "The Truth on Biden's Abortion Malarkey."

JasonP wrote:

Very
nice discussion, Mr. Duke, but you present a false alternative. It’s
subtly implicit in your text here: “So a just law must reflect morality,
but what is morality? Who determines it? There are only two
possibilities: man or something outside of man does.”

(more…)
October 20, 2012

Enough Already with the Women-Get-Paid-Less Nonsense

By Selwyn Duke

The intersex wage-gap question asked at the last presidential debate
once again thrust the issue of equal pay for women into the headlines.
And since Barack Obama and Mitt Romney are both vying for women — who
vote in greater numbers than men do — both campaigns have been saying
all the “right” things. Obama has touted his signing of the Lily
Ledbetter Act, while the Republicans have pointed out that not only does the liberal network MSNBC pay its female employees less, so does, ironically, the Obama administration (by the way, Obama did the same in his office when he was a senator). Yet the truth on women’s pay is something neither candidate dare say.

Women aren’t given less.

They earn less.

The reality is that far from being a result of discrimination, the
intersex wage gap — 72 cents on a man’s dollar, or 77 cents, or … well,
it depends on whom you listen to — is solely due to the sexes’ different
lifestyle and career choices. Columnist Carrie Lukas explained this in
2007, writing:

Read the rest here.
October 19, 2012

Debating the Debate and Immoderate Moderation

By Selwyn Duke

Despite all the scrutiny placed on debate moderation, Candy Crowley
nonetheless managed to stoop to the occasion Tuesday night at Hofstra
University. Yet, although she gave it her best effort, the 2012 debate record is
still Democrats and the media 0 for 3. Unfortunately, the truth has been
a casualty as well.

“‘Tis better to remain silent and be thought a fool….” You know the
rest. When Crowley “corrected” Mitt Romney after he rightly said that
Barack Obama didn’t declare the Benghazi attack an “act of terror” in
the Rose Garden on Sept. 12, she sounded like a mother defending her
little son’s lie in deference to emotional attachment. And while she
would have to admit her error post debate, she had a rationalization at
the ready: Romney used the wrong word. Yes, that’s right up there with
her son Barry’s copout that gas prices were far lower four years ago
because the economy was collapsing. But the problem wasn’t the wrong
word — it was the wrong moderator.

Even with Crowley’s thoroughly modern mea culpa, however,
much of the damage was done. What about the viewers who didn’t watch the
post-debate coverage and are only as informed as Crowley herself?

The truth is that Crowley’s meddling was as inappropriate as was her
presence itself. It was much as if Angelo Dundee had been the referee
for the first Ali/Frazier fight and jumped on Smokin’ Joe’s back because
Ali couldn’t hack it that night.

Read the rest.